


Silent Creek: The First Few Days

by MadCatta



Category: The Power of Five - Anthony Horowitz
Genre: Nightrise, Silent Creek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 06:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11708745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadCatta/pseuds/MadCatta
Summary: Feat: Danny and Scott meeting... I mean that's mostly it.





	Silent Creek: The First Few Days

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write this scene for ages.

He wakes up lying on his back, still in the tee shirt and loose jeans he had been in the night before. Scott wakes very slowly, blinking back to some awareness and slowly moving his mouth… his jaw is stiff and dead in his mouth. And it hurts.

 _Jamie…?_ He thinks, and gets no response.

He’s in a small, simple room with stark white walls. The door has a frosted glass panel. The bed is simple metal and bolted to the ground. Scott’s on top of the sheets and it’s hot in the room. He sits up and his head throbs. He remembers the night before.

 _JAMIE!_ Scott’s yelling the name as loud as he can in his head in the hope (fear?) that Jamie will answer. Jamie doesn’t answer. Scott tells himself he’s relieved, because that means Jamie isn’t taken like he is.

Or he’s still knocked out.

Scott hauls himself out of bed and nearly collapses again. He sits down and blinks hard, his head spinning sickeningly.

There’s a knock at his door. Scott stiffens and raises his head. A boy of about eleven pokes his head around, looking in curiously. He smiles uncertainly. “Hey.”

Scott squints at him. “Hey.” He recognises this boy but he can’t work out how.

“Are you ok?”

Scott blinks again, confused by the situation. He stands up again and goes to the door. The boy stands back, allowing Scott out of his room and into a similarly sterile corridor with identical doors leading into identical rooms all along it. “We’re neighbours,” the boy adds.

It clicks. “Daniel McGuire,” Scott says.

Danny’s mouth drops in shock. “Yeah! How’d you know?”

“I met your mom…”

Danny’s face brightens. “You met my mom? How is she? I can’t believe – how did you?”

“She’s looking for you,” says Scott. “She misses you.”

Danny swallows hard and looks away for a moment, his eyes bright. Scott looks at him properly. He’s skinnier than the picture his mom had shown Jamie, skinnier than the child in his mom’s head. Scott’s relieved on her behalf that he seems well enough. “Where are we?” he asks.

“Don’t know,” says Danny, his voice thick. “Uh. There’s lots of us… I’ll show you. It’s like nearly lunch…”

Scott has no sense of time. He’s aware he’s in the same clothes as the day before, and he’s also aware that he’s sticky and uncomfortable. He probably smells. Regardless, Danny leads him along the corridor to a common room. It’s just a big white room with chairs and tables, all bolted down. A bit like a very secure school canteen.

And there are other kids. A girl just older than Danny sits close to the TV, staring intensely at it. A couple of identical twins – which gives Scott a shock – and an older girl sit at one of the tables. A boy maybe a bit older than Scott staring out the window (with frosted glass so there’s not even a view). They all turn and look at him and Danny and Scott’s surprised by how lifeless they all seem, just for a second. And then suddenly they change and the girl in front of the TV jumps up and starts chattering, only Scott can’t hear her because the twin girls are talking as well and then the older boy stands up.

The older boy he can hear, as he speaks loud and slow. “Who are you?”

“And what can you do?” asks the older girl.

The way they all look at him – and Scott swivels and sees more kids coming out and staring at him – all reminds him of the theatre.

It’s all a bit too much.

He takes a step back from them and scowls. “Where am I?” he demands.

“Prison,” says the older girl. “This is a prison.”

The stark rooms, the bolted down chairs… yeah, that makes sense. “Why?”

“We’re special,” says one of the twin girls. She’s dressed the same as her sister, with similar bunches in her hair. Scott and Jamie never had a phase of wanting to be totally identical. But then they look like the kind of kids from a nice family. So do most of the kids, in fact.

So why here?

“Special how?” Scott asks, but it’s starting to come together in his head. He’s dreading the response.

“We do stuff.” The older girl raises her eyebrows. “I can stop clocks and bend spoons. They’re testing on us. Louis knows your name before you tell him,” she gestures to the older boy.

Louis nods his head in acknowledgement but has already sat down again and has turned his head towards the television.

“Jess can hear dead people,” the girl continues, gesturing to the girl by the television.

Scott closes his eyes for a moment. “Like – seriously?” he’s looking around, trying to see if this is some elaborate prank pulled by… someone.

Because this is weird. Even for his life. Waking up in a prison full of kids with special powers. That’s… weird.

Scott hears what they all do. All seventeen of them in the prison. He’s met about ten of them so far, all ranging in ages from ten to seventeen. And he asks about Jamie, but he’s the only new person they’ve had in over a month.

Scott quickly learns that none of them have powers like him – and none of them have control of their powers like he does.

There’s a loud buzzing noise suddenly and the kids all jump to their feet, hands behind their heads and feet slightly apart. A guard walks in, big and broad shouldered.

“Max Koring,” Danny whispers, trying to reach Scott’s ear.

It’s a stupid move. Koring rounds on Danny immediately. “What was that?” he demands.

Danny raises his chin but lowers his eyes. “Nothing, sir. Sorry.”

“You think you make the rules around here, huh?” Koring steps closer, towering over the boy.

Danny nearly cowers below him. “I’m sorry,” he mutters.

“Excuse me?” says Koring, and presses a hand into Danny’s chest.

“Hey!” Scott snaps. “Leave him alone.”

Koring pauses and slowly turns to face Scott. “Excuse me?” he repeats, looking angrier by the second.

“Leave him alone,” says Scott again. And then – because he’s an idiot but also because he can’t stand seeing someone innocent getting hurt – he adds, “Fuck you.”

Koring backhands him, the opposite cheek to where Uncle Don had a few days earlier.

Koring’s strong, but Scott’s had worse at a younger age. He’s able to pull his head back to face Koring after it.

“You’re new,” says Koring.

“Yeah.”

“You’re gonna enjoy your treatment,” says Koring, smiling cruelly.

“You betcha,” says Scott.

Koring spits on the floor in front of him and then walks out.

Danny rubs a skinny arm. “Uh. Thanks for that. He’s kind of a jerk.”

“What did he come in for?”

“He comes in just to yell at us sometimes. Just check up on us, I guess.” Danny shrugs. “Is your face ok?”

Scott touches his warm cheek. “Yeah. Don’t worry about it.”

Danny grins up at him. “What’s your brother like?”

“He’s pretty cool.” Scott frowns. “I hope he’s gonna be ok…”

They come for him the next morning. Scott’s not surprised, he was warned as much. He’s handcuffed and injected with something, dragged out from his room to another room. And then they put monitors on his head and around his arms and he’s still handcuffed, a couple of guards in the room with him. One he recognises – Banes from the theatre. And another comes in – Max Koring.

And then they test his abilities.

Scott makes a first mistake very early on. Koring’s hands are tight on his wrist and he hates it and Scott’s furious, that this is happening and that it hurts and that they’re doing this to kids younger and more innocent than him. He tells Koring to let go – and Koring does.

That’s how they learn his power is stronger than they’d first thought.

After that, they don’t hold back. And it hurts… a lot.

Scott gets through the bad times with Don and Marcie with two reasons: one, Jamie’s there with him. Which helps, but interferes with the second reason. The second reason is that he’s killed somebody. He, Scott Tyler, cruelly and deliberately caused a man to die. All the bad things that have happened since then have been a punishment. They’re what he deserves.

Scott focuses on Jamie for the start of the tests, when they’re trying to get him to use his powers. Jamie as a distraction… and then Ed as motivation.

But these guards have all day. All week – hell, all time. Scott shows them a bit of what he can do and refuses the rest, getting hurt for his troubles. Which is ok… he can deal with some beatings.

Then they break out something else, something that causes burning pain across his entire body unlike anything he’s ever felt. Finally, he shows them all he can do. And then they hurt him because he’s using his powers to try and escape. Then, they hurt him because he’s rude. Then they hurt him because they can, and because he scares them.

Then he just hurts.

It crosses Scott’s mind that surely this torture is worse than killing someone, that at least Ed’s death was quick.

And then he sinks into grateful unconsciousness.

 

 


End file.
